Scattered Thoughts . . .

Today, we (Sheila, Nan, Pop, her fiancee John, and I) had the honor to be guests of Liza at Johnson State College. Liza graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology this morning! We all had a really great time. Liza was visibly excited and quite proud of herself... as she should be! I have to say that Sheila and I are also quite proud of what Liza has been able to accomplish. Today was sort of a special day for Johnson... this was the last graduating class from "Johnson State College" before they begin the next school year consolidated with another local state college under a different name. It was definitely a special graduation ceremony for us but, in some ways, it was a special graduation for all those associated with Johnson State College as well. Congratulations to Liza! I have a few video clips (I had no plan to shoot video but once the bagpipes started during the processional, I had to capture a few video clips) and many more photos to share but, for

I previously wrote about designing and building my own grand piano using a Yamaha keyboard as the base for the keyboard and sound. In that blog entry, I wrote about designing my own piano around a Yamaha digital piano but I didn't provide any samples to back up my claims. Below, are two short videos which I find to be excellent examples of today's Yamaha digital pianos.  The first is a video of classical pianist, Dominic Piers Smith, performing and providing some of his thoughts about Yamaha's current digital pianos. The second video features a beautiful and moving performance by pop singer Susan Albers. Both videos are impressive and certainly showcase today's Yamaha digital piano.

As if my current 'to-do' list isn't long enough, as I've been recovering from a foot injury over the past month, I've been sketching some designs and plans for a new digital grand piano to add to my 'to-do' list! I've been thinking about designing my own piano for many years. Long ago, I accepted the fact that I would never be able to afford to buy a new commercially manufactured grand piano so I've been creatively designing my own piano. The truth is, this plan has been simmering in the back of my mind for quite some time but, lately, I've been more persistent and detail-oriented in figuring out dimensions, sketching ideas, and working out design issues. Some of the many sketches of a bored maniac... For the most part, I've been laid up with my foot elevated for at least a month now. While I installed that new flooring and new ADA toilet in our master bathroom a bit more than a month ago, I somehow injured my achilles tendon and my

It was a fairly nice afternoon the other day so Sheila and I went for a walk with the grandkids. This was a pretty good opportunity to test my new little action camera so I brought that along for the ride. A screenshot from the video... preserved highlights...  detail in the clouds...   nice clarity...  nice color... nice video!   I figured this would really be putting this little camera to the test... I'm walking with a pronounced limp lately so I knew to expect a bouncy, jerky video... I didn't have any way to strap this camera to anything so I just held it in my hand down at my side... and it was quite breezy out so I knew wind noise would be an issue. Regardless... the resulting video clips look pretty good! I definitely want to make a little homemade wind-cut filter out of open-cell foam to cut down on the wind noise. The primary purpose of this action camera is to use it for recording video of kayaking at the lake and there is almost always some variable winds ou

The Sony FDR X3000 action camera.      The other day, I wrote about how video resolution keeps increasing exponentially rather quickly. Unfortunately, my old Fuji waterproof camera that we've been using at the lake for video is a bit dated and is showing its age. This put me on a search for an affordable waterproof video camera (rather than a waterproof stills camera) which will hold me over for the next five or more years. I quickly found that, once again, Sony has proven that they are listening to what the consumers and professionals want and need. It seems the best action video camera on the market today is a Sony camera... the Sony FDR X3000, to be exact. It has 4K resolution... comes with a waterproof housing... has a separate controller with LCD screen that I can wear like I would a watch (or I can mount it on an accessory)... it has an app which allows me to sync and control with my cellphone... and has perhaps the best video image stabilization on the market today.

A couple of times each year, I have a proof book of some of my photos printed. I just had another one of these proof books printed last week and received it the other day. I'm always amazed at the quality of my photography when I view the photos in print. Well... I need to put one condition on that... When I have my photographs printed professionally, I'm always amazed at the quality.   I've definitely had terrible print jobs in the past from many of the "discount" printers...  ie, WalMart, Snapfish, and perhaps the worst of the worst today, Shutterfly. You definitely get what you pay for in prints. There is a reason why these low cost prints cost so little...  crappy ink, cheap paper, low quality printers, and probably poorly paid employees who don't really know anything about color, calibration, printing standards and print qualities. To make this even worse, many of these 'low cost' printers contract out other low cost printers around the cou

I've been struggling with some ideas of what to do with all of my older video clips shot on cameras with far lower resolutions than is typically displayed today.  The video world and televisions are quickly upgrading to 4K while 6K and 8K cameras are already readily available. Full HD video clips only fill one quarter of a 4K screen... so... what to do with all these older clips to make them look acceptable at a time when resolutions are increasing drastically? To make matters worse, I have a lot of HD video (not "Full HD") which is even smaller! I got to thinking that I could use those lower resolution video files in picture-in-picture windows and they might not look so bad at the higher resolutions. The only way to know for sure was to try it. A screenshot of this side-by-side video technique. I went searching for some video clips and found some sailing clips that I shot way back in 2013. We were at the lake for Adam's birthday on this day. It's always

I've done a pretty good job at avoiding medical appointments for almost a year. That may not sound like much but my health has been known to prompt m edical appointments a few times a month. One of the things I explained to my doctor today is that all of this mast cell nonsense has become my 'normal' everyday life so I rarely look at it as anything but normal. I also reminded her that, as a result, I often find myself not divulging everything I should to my doctors. In my mind, everything is 'normal'.   Not seeing my doctor for about a year doesn't mean anything as far as how my health is at the moment or has been for the past year. Actually, for the past few months, my health has been pretty damn lousy. Not seeing my doctor for about a year only means I've done a good job at avoiding medical appointments.  So, my doctor tracked me down and had me come in for a visit, exam and some tests. That appointment was today.  As luck would have it, I have be

I'm still waiting to get in to see my doctor (appointment is tomorrow) so I was still just hanging around doing nothing but hoping to find something to do. As I was boiling an egg for breakfast, I noticed a Nuthatch outside our kitchen window... "Hmmmm... I haven't seen these guys since last year!"  I quickly decided that I'd grab a camera and a lens and try to capture a few photos.   Last week when doing the same, I grabbed my smallest camera and longest lens. Since my smallest camera was plugged-in to recharge its battery this morning, I decided to use my larger Sony camera body. Once again, I grabbed my longest lens. I haven't really used this combo yet so this would be a good test while giving me an opportunity to practice on these jumpy fast moving birds.  None of these birds outside our kitchen window ever sit still for longer than about three seconds so you need to be quick if you want to capture a crisp photo. This morning was no different. It

I've been laid up for the past two weeks. Actually, the past few months have been pretty lousy but the past two weeks have been significantly more limiting. I've needed a cane to get around and I've needed to be off my feet unless absolutely necessary. I have a medical appointment early next week so, until then, there has been a bit of a shift in my activities.   I've watched a lot of movies over the past two weeks... done some reading... I did a lot of research online... I wrote some additional to-do lists (like my current to-do lists weren't long enough)... and I fiddled around with my photography gear with time at the lake in mind. I even spent some time at the piano everyday which, I must admit, is a rarity.  Since most of the past two weeks have been spent on the couch, I've had a chance to scroll through thousands of my old photos. Tonight, I'm sharing a few photos from 2009 and 2010. Back during this period, I was shooting photos with a Fujifilm